


Wade Wilson Explains it All (Or at Least, How Clint's Keeping His Job.  Mostly-Keeping His Job.  It's Complicated.)

by the_wordbutler



Series: Motion Practice [8]
Category: Cable and Deadpool, Captain Marvel (Marvel), Marvel (Comics), Marvel (Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Humor, Legal Drama, motion practice universe, suffolk county legal aid
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 15:01:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_wordbutler/pseuds/the_wordbutler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Look, here’s the thing: all Wade wants to do is put together a fruit basket for a friend of his.</p><p>It’s just that his coworkers have other ideas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wade Wilson Explains it All (Or at Least, How Clint's Keeping His Job.  Mostly-Keeping His Job.  It's Complicated.)

**Author's Note:**

> My continued thanks to Jen, who helps improve my words every time.
> 
> The full cast of Wade Wilson’s coworkers, as well as links to their comic biographies, can be found in the end notes.

“The hell are you doing?” Carol demands when she walks into the conference room.

Not because of what he’s _doing_ , necessarily, but because that’s Carol’s default. She demands everything. Coffee, paper in the copier, pens when hers run out, that people stop parking in the handicapped parking spot because sometimes disabled veterans come to see her and they should be able to park there (but the lot fills up _so_ early, and it’s that or walking all the way from the far end of the parking lot, and he only has one ball, so that’s _like_ a disability). That’s just how she _is_ , almost like she thinks she’s the boss of all of them.

Really, she’s only the boss of the secretary she shares with Bobby and of a cranky part-time ex-Army lawyer girl who hates the whole world. No, really. The whole world. He’s checked on this.

“I’m making a fruit basket,” he says, and swaps out an orange for an apple.

“I can fucking see that,” she retorts—which is her other default, the swearing, which never made sense to him. Isn’t the phrase “swears like a sailor,” not “swears like a pilot”? Maybe no one taught her the right version. “But _why_?”

“Do _not_ bother asking,” Nate says. Of course he does. Because Nate’d come in when he was just starting, opening up all the bags of fruit and laying them out on the conference room table. Nate’s got his feet up on a chair, is sitting in another, and’s peeling an orange. “I asked three times. He’s ignoring me.”

Which is— Okay, maybe it’s a _little_ true. He’d grumbled about Nate _taking_ the orange, at first, but it’d been too big to really fit in the basket anyway. And then, Nate’d started peeling the stupid thing to eat right then and there, and he’d decided the better tactic was just to ignore _everything_.

Besides, there was something . . . weird about watching Nate peel the orange. Nate’s got really big hands, big enough that the orange looks delicate in them, and when his fingernails bite into the skin to start pulling it away . . . 

Yeah, okay.

He officially needs to get laid sometime in the next six months. Otherwise, he will do something he regrets. _Really_ regrets, half because he works with these people, in this office, every day, and half because Clint’ll literally mock him forever and ever (amen).

Carol scowls. “I still don’t—”

“Hey,” Bobby says, his head popping into the doorway, “are we out of toner cartridges or— Ooh, who brought fruit?”

“It’s _my_ fruit!” he complains, slamming his hands on the table. Everything and everyone (except Nate, because he’s creepy like that) jumps. He pushes himself to his feet, his chair spinning behind him. “God, I just wanna put together a ‘glad you’re not losing your job and we can still be friends’ fruit basket without everybody being—annoying!”

In the doorway—all the way in, this time, not just looming like a ghost, or a stalker, or a stalker-ghost—Bobby raises his eyebrows. He gets this stunned-bunny face sometimes, which he’d maybe think was cute if Bobby wasn’t really annoying half the time (and also really married all the time). “What’s he talking about?” he asks the air.

Carol shrugs. “I don’t know,” she admits, “but those strawberries are tempting the hell out of me.”

“My fruit!” he repeats, because apparently nobody got the memo.

“Wade,” Nate says calmly. Calm is Nate’s default, except those times when he’s really, seriously, unfixably pissed. If he gets to be all those things, he goes nuclear and pretty much burns the universe down. But otherwise, normally, he’s—like this. Calmly placing a slice of orange in his mouth, and _wow_ , Wade should not have watched that. 

Or the way he wets his lips as soon as the slice’s _in_ his mouth.

Is there fruit-based porn? Nate could star in fruit-based porn. He already looks like a porn star, all barrel-chested and—

Oh, right, Nate’s talking.

“—better for everyone in this room if you explained,” he finishes. The way his lips tilt suggests that he knows Wade only caught about half of that. Fucker. “Yes?”

He rolls his eyes. It’s, like, contractually obligated that he roll his eyes whenever Nate makes a point. Seriously. Clause 57 of his Suffolk County Legal Aid employment contract or something. 

“Whatever,” he answers, and—

Okay, no more looking at Nate while he eats fruit. 

(Little baby jesus, he needs to get laid.)

(Wade does, that is. Not little baby jesus, and definitely not Nate. Nate probably gets laid, like, all the time. And Carol, actually. Bobby, too, but again, that’s that married thing working for him. He bets they do foreplay by post-it, they’re such nerds.)

And everybody’s watching him. Why’s everybody—

Oh.

Explaining.

 _Right_. 

“Okay, so, Clint. You know, my friend Clint.” Everyone’s still staring at him like he’s grown a second head or something. He sighs. “Do any of you people listen when I talk?”

“From the D.A.’s office,” Nate supplies. Nate’s pretty good at listening. Actually, most the time, he’s the _only_ one listening.

Carol blinks. “The hot one?” she asks, because that’s how she sorts people out in her head.

“With the not-boyfriend?” Bobby asks, because that’s how _he_ sorts people out in his head. God, he’s so fucking _married_.

“Yes. Well, no. They’re all-the-way boyfriends, now.” Wade waves the thought away with a hand. He’s happy for Clint and everything—it’s actually kind of cute, in a sick and twisted way, to see Clint all coupled-up and angst free for once in, you know, the whole time they’ve known each other—but thinking about Clint and his boyfriend only leads to thinking about Coulson naked, and . . . No. Nope. Not a thing Wade is interested in doing.

Oh, look. Everyone’s staring again.

“Anyway,” he says. He clears his throat and buys himself a couple seconds of thought-sorting time. “He got brought up on disciplinary charges. Had to go up in front of the committee and everything. Big-time style. I mean, not that I know what _small_ -time style’d look like, but—”

“Is that why I had to cover that motion hearing for you?” Bobby asks. He’s all stretched out and sunk into one of the spinny chairs at the conference room table, except he looks— Yeah, okay, he looks a little ticked off. Wade definitely prefers the cute, married stunned-bunny over the ticked-off lawyer. “You said you had an irritable bowel flare-up.”

“I think your hubby misrepresented the message, ‘cause what I _actually_ said was—”

“I’m the one who answered the phone!”

“Kids, I will turn this car around and nobody’ll make it to Disneyland,” Carol scolds. She holds up her hands like she’s conducting an orchestra, and Wade decides he really _likes_ Carol. He likes her a lot, actually, even if she’s bossy and shouty. Because right now, she’s saving him from death by Drake.

Which sounds like a fancy cologne, actually, not—

Carol smacks her lips in a way that’s not subtle, like, at all, right then. He glances over and his heart nearly stops. Like in a cartoon, when they do the cutaway of the chest and you watch the heart freeze.

“My strawberries!” he shouts, and reaches for the carton.

Except she’s a pilot and runs, like, ten miles a day _for fun_ , and could probably bench press Bobby. She snatches the carton out of his reach and shoves another strawberry in her mouth. “You’re not going to use all of them,” she says. With her mouth full.

Swears like a pilot, manners like she was raised by military wolves. 

Maybe he doesn’t like Carol after all.

“Wade,” Nate interrupts. He glances over in time to see Nate sucking orange off his thumb. Oh, that is just not fair. He can put up with a lot of things, almost _anything_ , really, except casual insults to Bea Arthur’s foxiness and this . . . pornographic fruit eating _thing_.

Too much of his paycheck is already going to OnDemand movies. He’ll have to take a second job if this keeps up.

He swallows. “Nate.” 

And then Nate swallows, too, and his Adam’s apple bobs. Jesus _fucking_ — 

“Why was your friend brought up on charges?”

“What friend?”

“Clint,” Bobby offers. He sounds confused, like he can’t track why _Wade_ can’t track the conversation. Maybe he’s immune to Nate’s whole sexy finger-licking, orange-eating, neck-displaying routine. There must be a shot specially-designed for married people where they stop finding barrel-chested immigration attorneys sexy.

Wade wonders if he can get that shot.

Okay, wait, _focus_. “He withheld information on his bar application,” he explains, looking at the fruit basket. Wow. It is like five thousand percent easier to formulate words when he’s not staring at Nate Summers’s lips and throat and—all that. He’s going to remember this next time Carol organizes stupid summer pick-up sports. Look at Nate, words come late. Look away, words are— 

He’ll figure out the rhyme later.

“That’s the number-one thing you’re not supposed to do,” Bobby points out. His mouth sounds full. Wade doesn’t look, but he’s sure it’s a strawberry and he’s sure he _hates_ Carol. 

“Well, yeah. But it was for a screw-up a long time ago. Like, practically when he was in diapers and whatever.”

“Like Bobby,” Carol offers.

“I’m three _months_ younger than Wade!” Bobby squeaks. Which kind of doesn’t win him any arguments. Mostly, it makes him sound like his balls haven’t dropped.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Wade stresses, because he wants this to be over. He wants his strawberries back, he wants to pack them in with the cherries and the grapes and the assorted melon bits in the plastic container, and he wants to put the bow on the basket. He wants the conference room empty, he wants the silence of his office, and he wants to stop being— _surrounded_ by people who are constantly getting laid by their husbands, or whatever hot guys they pick up at bars, or other stars of the fruit porn industry. He never used to want that kind of thing, either, but it’s weird when one of your best friends is all coupled up and happy and you might not see him for the next sixty days.

And when one of the other best friend types is all waxing thoughtful about _her_ best friend being pregnant and engaged and whatever.

Wade’s pretty sure that responsible adulthood kind of sucks.

“He didn’t disclose,” he continues on after a deep breath, “because it happened a long time ago. And then Laufeyson—”

Carol snorts like she’s maybe choking on a strawberry. “I hate that motherfucker.”

“—found out and broadcast it to the court. Like, in open court. In front of everyone.” He glances up, just really quick, to see that Carol and Bobby are both scowling. Serious scowls—serious like they want to pull a Nate and burn the world down—that crease everything. 

At the end of the table, Nate’s done with his orange but looks kind of . . . thoughtful. 

Wade’s marking this down as the weirdest day he’s had in a long time.

“Laufeyson filed a complaint with the disciplinary committee, and Clint went in front of them, and after he kicked ass and took names, they decided to just suspend him.” He lets out a breath. Why does he feel breathless? God, his brain is _stupid_. “For sixty days, which is a _really_ long time, and—”

“Wait, wait,” Bobby says. He’s halfway through a strawberry, but he’s sort of holding up his non-strawberry hand. Wade frowns at him, but only because _he’s_ frowning at Wade. You can’t start a frown without expecting somebody to reciprocate. “He didn’t get disbarred?”

“No.”

“Fired?” Carol asks.

“No.”

Bobby’s frown deepens. Wade really doesn’t like his frown. His frown usually comes with telling old people that they’re ancient and crazy, or sad news about a really complicated will written in lipstick on the bottom of an Amazon box. “Public sanction?”

“N—”

“Questions about his convictions?” Carol presses.

“I’m kind of starting to think you _want_ this story to end with Clint having to become a cracked-out mercenary or something, the way you’re all—”

“What the _hell_ are the four of you doing?”

The voice pierces the room like nails on a chalkboard, which Emma probably knows all about because she’s got the kind of porno-lesbian _talons_ required for quality chalkboard scratching. She’s also standing in the doorway, her hands on her hips and her face trained straight to _I hate everyone_. That’s actually Emma’s default. That, and yelling.

“I leave for an hour,” she continues, her voice still shrieky and not at all conducive to, you know, maintaining hearing on a long-term basis, “and I come back to find my full-time staff—what? Assembling a fruit salad?”

“Basket,” Wade’s mouth says. His mouth and mouth alone, because his brain immediately denies being a party to that action and—

Oh god.

Oh god, Emma’s jaw is set into a line that could probably cut glass. “ _Excuse_ me?”

“Emma.” Nate is calm—like, perfectly smooth-as-silk calm, which kind of works with how rumble-deep low his voice is in his chest—and collected when he glances over at Emma. He raises his chin, she raises hers, and there’s silence. Blissful silence, and really, here’s the secret: Wade’s been grateful for Nate Summers in his life about three million times so far, but this time takes the cake. All of the cakes, really. “A friend of Wade’s just found out she’s pregnant—”

Carol’s first cough sounds distinctly like the word _liar_. The second one, after Bobby _kicks_ her, mostly sounds like _fuck_.

“—and he asked us to help assemble a fruit basket for her.”

One of Emma’s perfectly-plucked and not-at-all-scary-looking eyebrows rises. “Really.” It is completely and totally not a question.

“Really,” Nate replies, and the way his voice tilts up kind of suggests it’s a challenge. Wade swallows. Emma, she’s—kind of terrifying. Terrifying is her default, besides the hating and the yelling.

(Kind of like Carol, actually. Huh. He wonders if maybe she and Carol’ve ever—)

(Nope.

Nope, that is a dark, _dark_ road filled with really long bathroom breaks for the next two weeks, and a lot of batteries at home.)

Finally, after what feels like a scarily long time, Emma rolls her eyes. “Wade, finish your—basket,” she says. Her tone kind of suggests that if Wade wasn’t their only criminal defense attorney, he’d probably be fired right then and there. This isn’t the first time he skated by on the fact that all of them—really, every single one, except maybe Carol (a little)—are civil attorneys. “The rest of you, just— _pretend_ you actually work.”

She storms out in a swirl of blonde hair and white suit—Wade sometimes wonders whether she’s a walking tampon commercial or _what_ , because all her clothes are white, or light beige, or some other _pale_ color that’s just asking for _stains_ —and Bobby snaps to his feet right behind her. 

(Of course he does. His hubby’s not an all-the-way doctor yet. He’s, like, a season two of _Grey’s Anatomy_ doctor. Bobby needs to keep them in lube and burritos.)

Carol kind of follows, too, but she makes a whole show out of it, rolling her eyes and stealing more strawberries before she wanders out. Wade suspects for about the zillionth time that Carol only works at legal aid because there’s not really a market for private practice military lawyers or whatever she actually does. 

He feels a little bad about that.

Okay, not _really_.

But that leaves him and Nate, sitting in the conference room, orange peel all over the end of the table and Nate’s boots still propped up on one of the chairs. He glances over at Nate, Nate glances over at him, and they kind of watch one another.

For a while, actually.

For, like, longer that is really polite in American culture, or whatever.

“Your friend was lucky,” Nate points out. It’s almost—pleasant. Wade can count on about one hand how many times Nate’s been actively pleasant to him. Three of those times involved vodka punch.

One involved when Bobby had kidney stones and they had to do a disability appeal on his behalf.

If this is the thumb of his one hand of times, Wade’s pretty sure there’s a catch.

But then Nate’s sweeping all the peels into his hand and rising from his spinny chair. Wade tracks him through the room—to the garbage can, back to the table, to where he takes a strawberry before he pushes the carton back across to Wade, and—

“Yeah,” he says. Nate raises his eyebrows. “I— I didn’t say anything to him about it, because I knew that’d be kind of messed up,” he says, staring down at the strawberry carton so he doesn’t have to stare _up_ at Nate, “but I figured he’d get disbarred. I looked up cases and everything. It looked kind of ‘right before the third act of a Bond movie’ bad.”

Nate’s knuckles are on the table. He knows this because it’s the only part of Nate that’s safe to watch—except it isn’t, because it just gets him thinking about Nate’s hands again. “You wrote a good letter,” he says.

“I tried to, but I— Wait, what?”

His head snaps up against his will, which he wants to be pissed about, but he’s also too busy staring at Nate. Nate, who’s smiling this shitty, knowing, troublesome smile that usually means he’s about to prove Wade or somebody else _wrong_ , or make them look like assholes, or . . . _something_.

“You can’t know about the letter,” he returns, but Nate’s still smiling. “Nobody except the bar committee and maybe the creepy-ass D.A. knows about the letter!”

The snort from Nate, it’s—almost like a laugh. Wade thinks it might be the closest thing to a laugh he’s ever heard from sober Nate. Except when sober Nate’s proving people _wrong_ , or whatever. “You wrote it on the office laptop,” he points out.

“So?”

“Wade.” And—oh god, if that’s a _genuine_ smile, he’s doomed. “You wrote it on the office laptop, saved it to the desktop, and named it _super urgent and important make sure this gets taken care of asshole_.” He recites the whole title like it’s a song lyric or an e.e. cummings poem and wow. Either Wade’s suffering sudden-onset flu symptoms, or he’s _blushing_. “I checked it. Just in case.”

Wade drops his eyes to the carton of strawberries. The mostly-empty carton of strawberries. _Dammit_ , Carol, he stole your emergency ration of chocolate _one_ time, how are you still holding that—

“It was nice.”

Wade really hates his head, because it jerks up again. “What?”

“The letter.” Nate knocks his knuckles against the table, then steps away. “Whether you want to admit it or not.”

He also hates that warm feeling. And the way the back of his neck feels itchy. And Carol. He mentioned Carol, right? “I don’t want to _not_ admit it,” he spits out, because he _can_ , “I just— It was _private_ , and you— You _read_ it, which means now I have to _kill_ the guy who makes the best coffee in the office, and that’s just inconvenient.”

And if he feels stupid for stammering (spoiler alert: he totally does), he feels stupider when Nate laughs. Because it’s this rumbly sound like thunder rolling in, except warm, and Wade—

Oh god, Wade needs sex. He needs sex with an actual warm body, because that laugh _does_ things.

“Finish your basket,” and he swears on Bea Arthur, Nate’s actually _teasing_ him.

Which is why he gets a strawberry pinged hard off the back of the head, and why he then gives Wade the finger, and why Wade laughs so hard that Emma comes by to yell at him again.

Hey, maybe not all the things have to suck _all_ the time, you know?

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this story in part because Wade Wilson will not be appearing in "Permanency" at all, in part because Wade will become very important to a future story, and in part to introduce you all to the cast of characters employed at Suffolk County Legal Aid.
> 
> SCLA is a organization dedicated to providing low- and no-cost legal services to qualified individuals. It consists of the following employees:
> 
> Employment and civil rights law: Emma Frost, supervisor ([Emma Frost / White Queen](http://marvel.wikia.com/Emma_Frost_\(Earth-616\)))  
> Military law and veteran advocacy: Carol Danvers ([Captain Marvel, formerly Miss Marvel](http://marvel.wikia.com/Carol_Danvers_\(Earth-616\)))  
> Elder and poverty law: Bobby Drake ([Iceman](http://marvel.wikia.com/Robert_Drake_\(Earth-616\)))  
> Immigration and civil rights law: Nate Summers ([Cable](http://marvel.wikia.com/Nathan_Summers_\(Earth-616\)))  
> Criminal defense: Wade Wilson
> 
> Plus a number of unnamed minor characters who will probably never make sustained appearances at SCLA.


End file.
